What do economic indicators, economic news, and budget decisions reveal about the economy?

"Use the Bureau of Labor Statistics site (http://stat.bls.gov) to determine the current trends in GDP growth, unemployment, and inflation. What do these trends tell you about the level of business activity and the business cycle? If you owned a staffing agency, how would this information affect your decision-making? What’s the latest U.S. economic news? Go to the CNBC website, and select the Economy page, which categorizes news about the world economy, the U.S. economy, and other important topics (http://www.cnbc.com/economy/). Read the various articles about the U.S. economy, and then do the same for GDP Outlook. Prepare a summary of what you learned, and use it to discuss where you think the economy is headed for the next 6 to 12 months. How would you spend the national budget if you were president? Here’s your chance to find out how your ideas would affect the federal budget. Go online to Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, at http://www.crfb.org, and under Tools, click on Stabilize the Debt, which is an exercise in making difficult decisions and how government officials make trade-offs when they prepare the federal budget. Experiment with your own budget ideas at the site. What are the effects of your decisions?"